What does the perfect pedal stroke look like?

There is no such thing.  Just pedal.

Look up tour de france videos on youtube and make up your decision from there.

Just make sure it's circular.  If it's not, you're definitely, definitely doing it wrong!

I try to get into the perfect position on the aerobars.  I look at my speedometer.  Trying to keep my perceived level of exertion the same I play with my stroke to see if I can get the speed up just a little.

Sometimes I'll try to see how long I can pedal with just one foot.  This makes it obvious where the dead zones are in the pedal circle.  You can play a little with your position forward and back and up and down on the seat and test it while pedaling with one foot.

The position of the ankle has been brought up here a few times.  If you let your ankle bend a little past neutral and get a bounce to it, you create an eccentric load which gives you just a little bit more power.  It also raises the risk of injury quite a bit.

I know that your are supposed to pedal by moving your feet in circles and not just push down.  I still don't know if I do it right so I just end up pedaling however.

there was a great video posted on the main site here a few months back that went right into this.. I found it helped me a lot in achieving a good 360 degree pedal. Cannot seem to find it at the moment

I remember it went into imagining you were scraping something off your shoe when at the bottom, and trying to push your toes through your shoe at the top.. 

Youtube Clip - Dunno if this a good teaching tool or not but I just try to wipe my feet on the bottom of the stroke. Always been more worried about getting Cadence right though! 

I'm not sure I have found "perfect" but when the training asked to unclip and peddle with one leg at a time it sure gave me a greater awareness of how bad my pedal stroke was.  It quickly identified my dead spots on the top and bottom. 

You do NOT want a 360 degree pedal stroke.  You only want about a 200 degree one and will unweight the opposite pedal on the upstroke.

360 in inefficient and wastes energy.

But you cannot "teach" yourself all that with anything other than seat time.

What does the perfect pedal stroke look like?  The one that gets you to the finish the fastest and most efficiently - and that is slightly different for every person.

Edited by Daremo 2009-09-30 8:15 AM